Women in the Bible: Miriam, the Singer

Exodus 15: 19-21
19 When the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his chariot drivers went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them; but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.
The Song of Miriam
20 Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. 21And Miriam sang to them:
‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’

Truthfully, these few verses do not do Miriam, the sister of Moses, much justice. In fact, usually when you say, “Miriam, you know, Moses’ sister,” everybody says, “Oh, yeah, right.” While Moses’ song is verses and verses long, hers is 1. But then again, that is the story of Miriam: always there with her brother, moving the story of God and God’s salvation for God’s people along, making sure that the right person is available for God’s mission at the right time. Take a quick trip with me back to the beginning of the story of Miriam.

Long before they arrived at the sea of Reeds, also called the Red Sea where Pharoh’s guys lost the trail of the Israelites, Miriam stood at the side of another river: the Nile. The Hebrews were still enslaved in Egypt, and there was an order from the Pharoh for every boy born in the land to be thrown into the river but that the girls were to live. This would prevent the Hebrews for continuing to grow rapidly in number and would allow him to keep control over them. So, Miriam’s mother gave birth to a boy during this time and hid him as long as she could. But when she couldn’t hide him any longer, she put him in a kind of basket and set him into the Nile so that he would not be thrown there and drown. But he wasn’t left their to drown on his own; Miriam was there watching, making sure that he made it. And the story goes that he did make it, at the hand of the Pharoh’s daughter and the breast of his very own mother. How was this boy so lucky? It wasn’t luck: it was Miriam.

Miriam watched her baby brother, Moses, and when Pharoh’s daughter found him, Miriam was the one who suggested that she get a wet nurse for him from among the Hebrew people. It was really a brilliant plan—this way, Moses would be reunited with his mother and her mother with her infant son whom she had given up so that he would have a chance to live. And that chance came under the watchful eye of Miriam. But who among them—Miriam, Moses, their mother, or Pharoh’s daughter—could have known what would come to pass as a result of an older sister’s careful eye?

Ten years ago I was working as the Director of Youth Ministries at the Briarcliff United Methodist Church. About halfway through my tenure there, a family arrived at our church who had 2 teenaged children. The older of the 2 was a girl, and the younger was a boy. The boy was one of the most difficult kids I had ever worked with. He ran away from the church every week for a while when they first started coming. We would have supper and he would have a little fit because he didn’t like the food. Then we would move to the youth room to start our program for the evening, and as soon as we would close our eyes to pray, he would run out of the room. I had to recruit an adult leader just to run after this boy when he ran out of the room because we were close to an outside entrance and located at a pretty busy intersection. I had no idea what he would do, and I was worried about whether or not he would make it, quite honestly, into adulthood. When we went on retreats, there was a constant battle between this guy and the adult chaperones: he didn’t want to participate in our activities and was always starting trouble. He was exhausting. When I left that church as I was getting ready to graduate from seminary, I stood before the congregation on my last Sunday and thanked them, especially the youth and their families, for their gracious welcome to me and for working with me in ministry for a great group of kids. I knew I would miss them.

The troublemaker ran to me after I had addressed the congregation and hugged me tight. “I’m going to miss you so much,” he said. I couldn’t imagine why, but it seemed genuine. A few months ago, this kid—now a young adult working full time and making a way for himself in life—found me on Facebook of all places. He survived. I was relieved to know it having had my doubts. Looking back on that show of emotion, I have wondered if the reason he was going to miss me was that he knew that underneath the correction and the reprimand he constantly received from me he saw that someone was watching out for him, that someone cared what happened to him. I had no idea that he would make it to adulthood or if so be able to support himself and make a life. But he has, knowing that there are people in the world who care about him.

We don’t always get to see the result of the seeds we plant in life, and we don’t always know how much someone’s participating in our lives is going to mean later on. As Miriam stood by the Nile watching that basket that contained her baby brother, I don’t imagine she had any idea they would stand together at the side of the Sea of Reeds, singing the praises of God who had saved them from Egypt, the land where the Pharoh called for the drowning of baby boys and the slavery of the Hebrew people. I bet she had no idea why it would be so important to her people for Moses’ life to be saved. How could she have known as a little girl that Moses would be the one God would choose to stand up to the Pharaoh, to lead the people out of Egypt, and to share with them the vision of the Promised Land and the 10 Commandments? If Miriam had not stood by the side of the Nile, making sure that her brother didn’t perish as so many other baby boys did, Moses would not have been able to consider and say yes to God’s call, to step up with the help of his brother and sister and speak to the Hebrews about the recovery of their freedom, and the religious world as we know it would not be what it is today.

Have you ever wondered if some small thing you have done in someone’s life really made a difference? Has someone done something that seemed small at the time but has played a very big part in who you have turned out to be? God has not promised us that salvation would be an easy road. If you read the whole story of the Exodus, you will find that it was pretty tough going between Egypt and Canaan. The road to Jerusalem was not easy for Jesus. And our journey of faith is not easy for us, either. But thank God there are Miriams in life to give us a boost, watch over us, and make sure that God has the chance to do all the things God wants to do in our lives and through us in the world.

So keep doing the small things in the lives of the people you know. And keep letting people watch over you and urge you along the path that God has chosen for you. You never know what could happen.

Amen.

Women in the Bible: Rahab, the Savior

Joshua 2:1-22
Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, ‘Go, view the land, especially Jericho.’ So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there. The king of Jericho was told, ‘Some Israelites have come here tonight to search out the land.’ Then the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, ‘Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come only to search out the whole land.’ But the woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, ‘True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from. And when it was time to close the gate at dark, the men went out. Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you can overtake them.’ She had, however, brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax that she had laid out on the roof. So the men pursued them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.

Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men: ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. As soon as we heard it, our hearts failed, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. Now then, since I have dealt kindly with you, swear to me by the Lord that you in turn will deal kindly with my family. Give me a sign of good faith that you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.’ The men said to her, ‘Our life for yours! If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land.’

Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. She said to them, ‘Go towards the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there for three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterwards you may go on your way.’ The men said to her, ‘We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you if we invade the land and you do not tie this crimson cord in the window through which you let us down, and you do not gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your family. If any of you go out of the doors of your house into the street, they shall be responsible for their own death, and we shall be innocent; but if a hand is laid upon any who are with you in the house, we shall bear the responsibility for their death. But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be released from this oath that you made us swear to you.’ She said, ‘According to your words, so be it.’ She sent them away and they departed. Then she tied the crimson cord in the window.

They departed and went into the hill country and stayed there for three days, until the pursuers returned. The pursuers had searched all along the way and found nothing.


If you have ever felt like an outsider, than have we got a story for you today!

Allow me to introduce you to today’s “Woman of the Bible”: Rahab. Here’s what we know about her:
• She was a prostitute,
• The king knew her (he sent word to her, specifically, about the men who had come to her),
• She believed that YHWH was the God of heaven and earth,
• She wanted to protect her family,
• She was from a poor family who apparently depended on her for livelihood
• She had courage,
• She observed Passover (because of the flax on the roof of the house she lived in),
• She was the mother of Boaz, one of the main characters in the story of Esther and the reason Rahab is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew,
• She was shrewd, a quality that Jesus seemed to approve of when it came to
negotiating the entrance of the kingdom of God.

So, why her? Why today? What do we need to hear about this woman’s witness to the love and life of God?

You may have noticed the job description I have given her in the sermon title for today: Rahab, the Savior. This is in no way meant to be offensive but to provoke your thought and imagination about the many ways that God’s hand saves us in many different situations. Without Rahab, Joshua might not have been able to “fit the battle of Jericho,” and Rahab would not have married Salmon, the father of Boaz, and we might not have had a window into the ways that God loves and works through even the most unexpected and, in our eyes, undeserving human beings.

Much has been written about King David and his shameful act of just taking a woman he wanted away from her husband by having him killed. But he was a king, beloved already by God, and went on to great things and a great legacy among the Hebrew people, so he is excused: beloved and excused. More and more is being conceptualized about Prostitute Rahab and her courageous act in helping the spies from the camp of Joshua, who was working hard to make the vision of the promised land come to pass for the Hebrews who had been rescued from Egypt in another generation by God through the life of Moses. Perhaps she, too, deserves a great place in the history of the people of God: a place in the generational lineage of Abraham to Jesus, a place among the great ancestors of faith mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews, a place in the definition of works as a demonstration of faith in the letter of James. Rahab is on the scene, just like the men of her day, offering her life for the salvation of her people and the people of God.

Now when I say her people, I mean that in the Southern way we talk about our “people.” Surely you’ve heard or maybe even said it yourself: “I know some of her people,” or “You know, her people are from up north in the mountains.” Rahab’s people were her family, and they were likely poor and unnoticed by the rest of the society of Jericho and the land of Canaan—the very place God had promised to the Hebrews as their new homeland. As a poor woman from a poor family, whose options for making a living were extremely limited, she did what she had to do to support her mother and father and siblings and family. And she lived not belonging to any group within Canaanite society but on the margins—literally living in the wall between the city of Jericho and the outside world. She was about as much of an outsider as you could find—no one wanted her as her best friend, lover, wife, mother, or even child.

…until they needed her. Of all the houses and all the prostitutes in the world, how lucky those spies were to have walked into the life of Rahab!

A little Joshua background: Joshua was the one to take over leadership of the Israelites in exile from Moses. He was a fairly young guy, probably on the biggest conquest of his life. He loved and served God and encouraged the people to keep faith and heart as they continued to journey toward the new life of freedom that God had promised them as they were coming out of Egypt. In fact, think back to that time of passing over from slavery to freedom for those folks: there are some references to the first Passover in the story of Rahab. The flax on the roof of the house—a tradition of Passover. The crimson cord by which Rahab would communicate safety to Joshua’s spies—a symbol of the blood of the lamb to be put over the doors of the Hebrews during the slaughter of the firstborn of Egypt as the Hebrews were being delivered. These signs of a connection between Rahab and one of the most important holy observances of the Hebrews are important indicators that in heart she is one of them: finally a place for her to belong and contribute.

I think one of the reasons we often feel marginalized is that we cannot find ways to contribute to communal life. Have you ever said to yourself, “If only they knew what I have to give?” I think it’s a question that resonates with people in a very deep place: belonging is not just about getting along with most everybody. It is also about having a place and a purpose for being in that group. This was Rahab’s moment; after a life of living in between and making decisions that isolated her from any community, this was finally the time for her to matter, for her life to make a difference.

Are you wondering when that time will come for you? It’s easy to get wrapped up in the tasks of daily life—work, taking care of family, connecting with friends, to do lists—and to forget that there is a bigger purpose for each of us as we make our way through life on this earth together. There is a place for each one of us to belong in the reign of God: there are gifts for each one of us to use; there is courage for each one of us to exercise; there is acceptance for each one of us to feel; and there is work for each one of us to do. Salvation from death, whether it be at the hands of sin, depression, disease, war, or anything else that pursues us in this life, is available to us. Jesus showed us that salvation from God is open to all people as he overturned death in his resurrection. Rahab showed us that really anyone can participate in salvation as she came from the margins, from outside the Hebrew community and tradition, recognized our God as the God of all, and offered salvation to the Israelites through putting her own safety at risk and her marginalized place in society to good use. Without that red cord, where would the people of God be today?

We don’t thank God for the life of Rahab because she was a prostitute, because she lived on the margins, or because she was a woman. We give thanks to God for her life because she had courage to respond to the goodness of God in a terrible situation for herself and her family. She had the courage to recognize that God could save her and her family from indebtedness that could never be repaid and a life of slavery to that debt. She had the courage to help people she didn’t know but whom she knew were out to kill her and her fellow Canaanites. She embraced the power of God to save others, not for her own sake, but for the sake of people whom she loved.

I like to think of Rahab as the first one at the middle school dance to get up from the row of chairs around the wall of the gym and go ask someone to join her on the dance floor. She may not be wearing the best dress, but she has the courage to make a place for herself. She will be remembered for generations and her story told.

Because of Rahab’s belief in the saving power of God, she, herself, became a kind of savior for others. She believed so much in the power of God to save even folks outside the recognized “family” that she took a step out in faith that God would save her, too. It takes courage to believe in God, my friends. It takes courage to believe that you don’t have to stay on the outside or continue to be marginalized. Our sister Rahab has shown us with her life that no matter who you are, God loves you, looks after you, and can use you to help others. You may think you are on the outside, that you have nothing to give, that no one cares about you. But God has made you, loves you, and helps you find your place in the life of the community to contribute, to give back, to belong.

This may be your place. This body of faithful folk may be the one where you can let God’s love pull you in, you can find the courage God has given you to reach out to others who are on the outside, where you help save someone else. Rahab is not some far away, fairy tale character in the Bible. She is us, and we are her.
So muster up your courage, my friends, to find the place in God’s reign where you belong, where you are needed, where you can contribute. And there you will find Rahab, a prostitute, a poor woman, one whom the rest of the community was willing to overlook. And she will be there cheering you on, handing you a red cord, and giving you courage to help someone else.

May it be for you.

Amen.

Women in the Bible: Mary Magdalene, the Faithful

John 20: 1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.


Poor Mary Magdalene.

I suspect she spent most of her life wondering: what would it have been like to be one of the 12? Obviously in those days it wouldn’t have been possible or even proper for her to have been one of the guys, and she certainly did not make it into the lists of Jesus’ disciples given in all 4 of our gospels. But she is mentioned as a companion of Jesus in Luke’s gospel, after the twelve, of course, and along with 2 other women from whom Jesus had cast our evil spirits or demons—not a very impressive introduction to this woman who would become the very first person to whom the risen Christ would reveal himself.

The church has perpetrated Mary Magdalene for centuries as a prostitute, linking her with the story in John 7 and 8 of the woman caught in the act of adultery, but that woman is never named. The references in the gospels to Jesus casting seven demons out of Mary Magdalene is another reason that ancient scholars and church officials tried to make a sexual sinner out of Mary. But Mary’s friends and admirers through out the ages of church history have kept the faith and now found no proof that she ever sold herself or was caught in any kind of inappropriate act that would deem her deserving of such a derogatory identification. So, rather than speculate on what we don’t know for sure about her, let’s talk about what we do know.

Mary was from the town of Magdala. It was a small place on the Western shore of the Sea of Galilee. So, you could say she was a hometown girl. Most of the other disciples were found at Galilee’s shore; so was she, apparently. Most of the other guys were just regular guys, fishing and making a living. Then they were called and they followed. We don’t know how Mary became a part of the group, but we know she was faithful.

Do you remember that it was Mary who was at the cross with the other women? We have accounts in the gospels of the events that took place surrounding Jesus’ death: Judas turning Jesus in for money, Peter denying that he knew him, and no record whatsoever of the 12 being present with Jesus in the last hours of his life except for John, the one to whom Jesus gave his mother. But there is Mary—standing, praying, weeping, experiencing the death of one whose life had transformed her own. For a long time she had been witness to his teaching, his healing, his forgiving, his very life. We suspect that the women were the ones taking care of the needs of Jesus and the 12 as they traveled. Mary had been supporting the ministry of Jesus for some time, and she wasn’t about to give that up now.

It’s almost like she knew that something extraordinary was going on. She was faithful to Jesus to the very end and beyond. When the disciples were nowhere to be found at the cross, she was there. When they were hiding behind closed doors, she was scurrying to the tomb early in the morning on the third day to be sure that Jesus’ body was properly prepared for death since he had died so close to the Sabbath day. When the ones she called to come and see the tomb ran away, she stayed around, unsure of what was happening but I imagine with some sense that there was more to be experienced there than the emptiness of the place where they had buried her Lord. She was faithful; she was there.

There were a million reasons for her not to be there. She was, after all, a girl. Being considered of delicate existence and second-class citizenship, women were not to be part of the team. They could cook for the team, but they would not play a role in helping the team do their work. I suspect she might have been a little aggressive since she actually did make it into the gospels—all 4!—and was the one that was sent to tell the others that Jesus had risen from the tomb and overcome death. And while we’re on the subject, Peter and the beloved disciple came to the tomb, saw that Jesus wasn’t there, and went back home. We are not told that they looked for Jesus, that they stopped off anywhere to tell anyone what they had seen. Mary is the one given the charge by Jesus to go and tell the guys what has happened. Mary is the first witness to encounter the risen Christ.

That is quite an honor.

I have to wonder what that conversation was like. We know what she said: “I have seen the Lord.” What we know as we read further in John 20 is that when Jesus appeared to the disciples, they were huddled together behind closed doors “for fear of the Jews.” And when they saw him and heard him, they rejoiced. What did they do when Mary appeared and told them what she had seen? Perhaps we should let Thomas off the proverbial doubting hook since apparently his brothers also came to believe the risen Christ when they saw him. I would love to have been a fly on the inside of the closed up room when Mary gave the password, came in, and told them what she saw.

Throughout her own life and throughout her life as a revered and sometimes reviled figure in the history of our faith, Mary Magdalene has been questioned about her faith. Was she a prostitute? Was she married to Jesus? What effect did the demons who possessed her have on her life? We have questioned her and questioned her, seemingly trying to beat the faithfulness out of her and get at the real reason why she always seemed to be around wherever Jesus was. We have put obstacles between her and our acknowledgement of her as a true disciple of Jesus, and we have missed until the recent past what I believe is the real story of Mary Magdalene: she was faithful. She attended to the needs of Jesus and the disciples as they traveled around offering the love of God in every place they went. She attended to the pain and suffering of Jesus as he stood up to the trials and tests of his spirit and his very life when he was crucified. And she got up early to get to his tomb as soon as she could so that his body would not have to go a moment longer than required in respect of the Sabbath without a proper burial. She even stayed around at the tomb, wondering what to do next when he was no where to be found and the others, having seen for themselves that he was not buried where he had once been, went home. She was there; she was faithful.

Mary probably didn’t have an easy life. None of us do who decide to follow Jesus and attend to his ministry in the world. But she never stopped being faithful to him. Even through the ages of our questioning of her character, she has remained faithful. She was a disciple of Jesus. She followed in the path of his ministry. She told his story. Even when she wasn’t sure what she was experiencing, she knew it was of God, and she gathered other people around it so that they could know God’s action, too. She was there; she was faithful.

These days the church doesn’t ask a lot of us. We are happy to be able to report good numbers in worship attendance and a month or two of operating in the financial black. And while these are good things that do indicate the level of health of the church, faithfulness is so much more than that. For us it is often measured in numbers. One of the problems I have at Annual Conference every year is that I over hear my clergy brothers and sisters greeting each other in the name of 150 or 200 people in worship, a $1,000,000 new building, or a great big ministry staff instead of offering to each other their own versions of Mary’s greeting to the disciples: “I have seen the Lord.” How our lives might be transformed if we chose to look upon our faithfulness to the church in ways that would measure how we are sharing Mary’s testimony with the world in our parish: “I have seen him, and it has changed my life.”

There are obstacles between us and our faithfulness. Summer Sunday mornings, when life seems to be more calm and relaxed, often call us to read the paper, sit on the porch, or go to brunch instead of coming to hear the Word of God and experience the support and encouragement of the gathered body of Christ. Our busy jobs and family lives pull us away from finding ways to serve the community, especially here in Grant Park where not everyone lives the kind of lives that we live with enough to eat, wear, and entertain ourselves. Our questions about things that the institution of the church does and doesn’t do sometimes separate us from the ministry of the gospel that is before us everywhere we look:
• in the lives of children who need something constructive to do during the summer or who need to know that someone cares about them year round,
• in the lives of senior adults who are wasting away in loneliness and who need to know that there are places where they can reach out to and be reached by other people who want to love them,
• at the “other schools” to which we don’t want to send our children but to which somebody’s kids have to go and whose students need a little extra help in tutoring or in mentoring.

There are obstacles to faithfulness, but our sister Mary did not heed those obstacles. Instead, her faithfulness gave her the gift of being the first to encounter the risen Christ and being the first to get to tell the good news.

What will your faithfulness bring to your life? Are there obstacles standing in the way of you living out your faith the way Jesus is calling you to do? Are there things that keep you from participating in the body of Christ and cause your faith to be shaken from time to time? Are there ways that you would like to practice your faith but you are afraid to do so? Let Mary be inspiration for you, for in a time when women were to be seen and not heard, she was the first to say “I have seen the Lord.” And in a time when women were to take their place in the back of the crowd, she was up front and center at the foot of the cross when others had found it too difficult to be there. And in time when women were mostly used to create a comfortable environment, she became a force to be reckoned with throughout the ages that would come after her, threatening the status quo with every century that passed.

And she was a girl.

Imagine all the things that your faithfulness could bring into being.

Disciples Got Talent, Part 2

Mark 8: 27-33

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’


One of the things that I am really enjoying about this summer at St Paul is the combined Adult Sunday school class that Mark Crenshaw and I are leading together. “Our Faithful Neighbors” has been, so far, a wonderful exercise in thinking and talking about what other faiths believe and how that impacts us as Christians. Having been a student of the religions of the world for many years, I am enjoying the conversation about what we know, what we don’t know, and what we’d like to learn about our brothers and sisters of other faiths as well as other sects within Christianity. Much of what we are discussing and doing together is about forming our perspective and reflecting on our own faith in new and deeply formative ways. It really is fascinating to hear the stories of others, both in the class and from other faiths, and it really is helpful to hear about how other faithful people and groups see the world and respond to life.

Jesus chose 12 disciples. From their eyes came 12 different perspectives on him and his life and ministry. So this question about who people say that he is and who they say that he is is a very important one. I just think it is too bad that we don’t have a response from every one of them. Wouldn’t it have been fun to have a response of some sort from all of them? I think that hearing their answers to this question might have given us a little more insight into who they were.

One of the most popular answers to the sermon topic survey was the desire to know more about the disciples. Here are some things we know according the legend and the gospels themselves:

• Andrew was Peter’s brother. In John, Andrew brings Peter to Jesus, declaring him the Messiah. He also brought the boy with the 5 loaves and 2 fish to Jesus for the feeing of the 5,000.
• Philip was always bringing people to Jesus: he recruited Nathaniel. He was, however, skeptical that they would be able to feed 5,000 people. He is the one who asks Jesus to show them the Father, and Jesus responds by asking him how he could have been with Jesus all this time and not realize that he is one with the Father? He was from the same town as Peter and Andrew.
• Nathaniel/Bartholomew was skeptical that anything “good” could come out of Nazareth but was converted when Jesus told him he knew him before they ever met. He was one of the ones gathered at the seashore when Jesus appeared to them a third time after his resurrection and ate breakfast with them.
• John was believed to be the beloved disciple. He was probably the one who followed the crown taking Jesus to the high priest when he was arrested in the garden, and since the high priest knew him, he was allowed to go into the courtyard with Jesus while Peter had to wait at the gate. This is likely the only disciple mentioned as present at the cross, the one to whom Jesus “gave” his mother. He is probably the one summoned to the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene, the one who went in and saw that the body was gone and then believed. He sat next to Jesus at the last supper and asked who it was that would betray Jesus. Early in the book of Acts, he was brought with Peter before the Temple authorities because of their preaching. He gets to go to experience the transfiguration with Peter and James. He also goes with them to the garden to pray with Jesus but falls asleep while waiting for Jesus. His mother asks for seats for him and his brother James next to Jesus in heaven.
• Thomas is often called a doubter because he couldn’t believe the account of the risen Christ when the other disciples told him they’d seen him after the crucifixion until he had seen Jesus for himself. He said that they should all go with Jesus to the tomb of Lazarus so that they could “die with him.” He was also one of the ones who saw Jesus and ate breakfast with him by the shore on his third appearance to the disciples after the crucifixion. He also asks Jesus how they will know where Jesus is going and how they will know how to get there when Jesus talks of going to the Father in John 14.
• Judas Iscariot ...the treasurer of the group, sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and then was sorry for what he had done and gave the money back; then he took his own life.
• Matthew/Levi was a Tax Collector. He gave a great banquet for Jesus in his home. Others asked why Jesus would call a tax collector (probably a thief) to be his disciples. This is when Jesus announces that he has not come for the righteous but for the sinner.
• James, the brother of John, was one of the Sons of Thunder, as called by Jesus. It was his mother who asked for places for him and John next to Jesus in heaven. Jesus asks them if they can “drink the cup he is to drink,” and they say yes. He also attended Jesus at the transfiguration, in the garden where he and the other slept while Jesus prayed in agony, and at the seashore where the risen Jesus appeared and shared breakfast with them.
• James, son of Alphaeus
• Thaddeus/Judas, son of James
• Simon the Cananaean/the Zealot
• Peter was first called Simon. His name is changed in our lesson for today, when he responds that Jesus is the Messiah. Then he challenges Jesus’ prediction that he will have to die, and Jesus rebukes Peter. He is also called the Rock upon which Jesus will build the church and the one to receive the keys to the kingdom of God. He also calls Jesus the Holy One of God when Jesus gives a difficult teaching about riches and getting into heaven and many other disciples leave. He was called while at work as a fisherman. Peter’s mother-in-law was healed from a fever early on in his ministry, so we know he was married. He asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone in the church who wrongs him. He asks Jesus what will happen to the disciples who have left everything behind to follow him. Jesus commands Peter to get out of the boat and walk to him on the water, and he does at first but then begins to sink. He is in the small groups that go with Jesus to the transfiguration, go with Jesus to pray in the garden, go to the temple court with Jesus after he is arrested, and this is where he denies Jesus 3 times. At the last supper, when Jesus begins to wash their feet, it is Peter who protests but eventually asks for all of him to we washed by Jesus. In the garden when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus, Peter pulls out his sword and tries to defend Jesus. Peter is summoned to come and see the empty tomb. At Jesus’ appearance at the seashore where they share breakfast with him post-resurrection, Peter is asked 3 times if he loves Jesus and then told to care for his followers. He is a great preacher in the book of Acts and is brought before Temple authorities because of his preaching after the ascension of Jesus.

They all go through periods of unbelief and misunderstanding. While they believe what Jesus tells them about his going to be with God and they come to the conclusion that he is truly of God and the son of God, they also at times are confused by his parables about the way God intends for the world to be. They wonder who can be saved when he tells them how difficult it is for a rich person to get into the kingdom of heaven. They are all on the boat together when a storm comes up and they fear that they will die as the boat is tossed on the water. Jesus questions their lack of faith when they call on him to save them, and they wonder who he could really be when he is able to calm the water. They ask him questions, like who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and when will he return and restore the kingdom of God. Jesus tells them that they will all be persecuted, too, as he will be. They do things that ignore Sabbath policy, like plucking the heads off grains of wheat as they pass the field during the travels and do not wash their hands before a meal. Yet, they complain when the woman uses expensive ointment on Jesus in preparation for his burial, saying it should have been sold and the money given to the poor. At the last supper they promise never to desert him when he says they will, but only 1 is recorded to have shown up at the cross, and they hide when he has been crucified for fear of the same fate coming to them. Matthew even tells us that after his resurrection the disciple meet Jesus where he had told them he’d be, and they worship him, but some doubted.
Who were these men, this band of 12 people who were hand-picked to be Jesus’ closest companions?
What I wonder is how much more we might have known about them had we heard the answer they each had for the question Jesus asks in today’s reading: who do you say that I am?

Perhaps Phillip would have said that Jesus was one who should be known as the Son of God since he brought people to Jesus. And maybe Andrew would have said that Jesus is the Son of God because he is able to do things only God can do, like multiply loaves and fish into a feast for 5,000. Nathaniel or Bartholomew might have called Jesus Messiah because he knew him the way only God could know him—completely and before they had ever come face-to-face. John might have called Jesus Messiah because he demonstrates the love of God in a perfect way. And Thomas might have said that he’d need some kind of proof before he could answer the question. Judas and Matthew might have framed the question in terms of what they stood to gain by answering—Judas might finally have the answers he, himself, needed so desperately, and Matthew might have wondered what wealth and power being with the Messiah might bring. James, son of Zebedee, might have just offered whatever his brother had to say, and we just really can’t have a clue as to what the other James, Thaddeus, or Simon the Zealot might have said.

But we know what Peter said: “You are the Messiah,” and then he denied him.

The question, my friends, is not who do they say that he is. It is this: who do you say that Jesus is?

Because of Jesus, we know by tradition that these men who were his chosen band of brothers all went to untimely and brutal deaths. Because they were ultimately committed to the ministry and message of Jesus, they all died at the hands of someone who wanted to put down the movement. That says that they believed what he said, what he did, who he was, and who they were because of him. They believed; their lives spoke the truth about Jesus; they were his witnesses just as he asked them to be.

What we know about these disciples, besides the sparse details we can gather by reading the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, was that they believed in Jesus and they loved Jesus and they gave their lives so that his message of love, forgiveness, and the coming of God into the world would not die. The disciples of Jesus are our brothers, our companions in faith. They are us.

And so today, they pass the torch, and we must stand ready to receive it. It is a simple entrance exam into this band of followers who continue to preach the good news of love, the forgiveness of sin, and the healing of brokenness that comes to us through Jesus as a gift from God. It is only one question, and your life will speak your answer. Are you ready to receive this call, this invitation to a transformed life?

Who do you say that he is?

Disciples Got Talent, Part 1

Mark 3: 13-19a; 6: 7-13
Jesus Appoints the Twelve
13 He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. 14And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, 15and to have authority to cast out demons. 16So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, 19and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

7He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10He said to them, ‘Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ 12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Just in case you haven’t yet set your DVRs or TiVos, you still have 2 days before the beginning of NBC’s smash summer hit, “America’s Got Talent.” I’ve never actually seen a full episode of this show, and I don’t know whether I’m proud of that or embarrassed by it. But I don’t live completely under a rock; I have seen that clip from “Britain’s Got Talent”—you know the one I’m talking about because you’ve all seen it, too: the one where an ordinary looking Scottish woman takes the stage and the judges and audience are practically laughing her off until she begins to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical Les Miserables. Susan Boyle is now an international sensation with her own recording contract, and I suspect that this is not the first sermon that has mentioned her. Newspaper articles, internet news stories, network and cable news shows alike have been reporting on her for a while, although now that she has had what some might call a “break down”, the news seems to have slowed about Ms. Boyle, along with the apparent interest of the world. We just can’t commit to someone who is not in the news every day.

But here is something I have learned upon investigating her story a little more closely: the music industry is changing.

I read an article comparing Susan Boyle to U2 soley because they now share a business manager. While it is an obvious stretch to compare the 2 musical acts, there is a contrast that is easily pointed out between them and their respective rise to fame. U2 is a band who became famous along what Ben Quinn of the Christian Science Monitor calls the traditional route: “the culmination of years of gigs and creeping critical acclaim.” There seems to be a new way to rise to the top of the music game now and rather quickly, at that. Just find your way on to some unscripted television talent show, and you could be the next Kelly Clarskson. When I was a kid, it was called “Star Search”, but it was not the way Michael Jackson became famous. That was a lifetime of work coupled with a famous family, and a pretty big price to pay for becoming a household name.

Now rewind history about two thousand years. Imagine a live show called Galilee’s Got Talent, and the judge is a locally known teacher and healer named Jesus. He’s got twelve open spots, and he’s ready to take auditions. Those in line for the job are people that are basically unknown, whose talent has only ever been seen or discerned by their family and maybe some friends. But mostly they fish. Their days are taken up with the ones they catch and the ones that get away. But this risk they take on this locally known teacher and healer will put them on the fast track to fame. Twelve unknown, regular guys are taking the world’s stage, not realize that overnight they will be asked to live very different lives and will be remembered, literally, forever. Relative nobodies yesterday; Disciples Got Talent today. No years of gigs, no creeping critical acclaim. Come to think of it, no critical acclaim to speak of for a long time and absolutely no gigs prior to this day by the sea when Jesus calls.

Here’s what we know about the twelve disciples:
• There were 12 of them, as named in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and kind of in John chapter 6.
• Most of them were fisherman; Matthew was a tax collector.
• Judas was the betrayer.
• Peter was a hothead.
• All of them were a little chicken—afraid of the things that happened to them when they were with Jesus.
• They were a little confused by all the talking Jesus did about what would come to pass—his death and resurrection.
• Basically, they often just didn’t get it.
• Oh, and we know that Jesus called James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James “Sons of Thunder,” but we don’t know why.

We know why Bono and U2 are famous.

When Susan Boyle opened her mouth to sing on British television that first time, we figured out why she’d be famous.

But these guys, they were just ordinary Simons and Johns and James—nothing particularly special, not working toward becoming famous teachers and healers, not planning on being the seed of an entirely new religious movement that would last for centuries into a time when people drove cars to the local house of God and updated their tweets on Twitter and had them forwarded to Facebook if they were really smart, when email was a thing of the past. But Jesus saw something in them, and their lives were instantly changed forever.

Sadly, though, they weren’t offered recording contracts or concert tours. They weren’t even offered tenure-track teaching jobs or a lecture circuit. They weren’t given their own reality shows about what its like to be a Disciple. They weren’t even sent out with provisions for their journey. But he did tell them to heal and to teach. He told them to offer themselves and to receive the hospitality of others as long as it was offered. He told them not to fret failure or the absence of success but to keep at it.

So we can add one thing to the list of stuff we know about the disciples: they had perseverance.

Would you try out for this show? Reality television is now called “unscripted.” Would you try out for the chance to be the next Disciple, one who is called on to leave your notions of life behind and try on a different kind of life for a time? If Jesus were offering you the contract today, would you sign? If your name were being called, and you were asked to go taking only a few things, not even all the things you might need, would you walk out on the stage and open your heart to whatever it was that Jesus had to say to you?

You may be asked to go to those members of our community in Grant Park who never enter our doors because there is too great a chasm between their life situations and ours. You may be asked to step outside the zone in which you are comfortable and do something here that you’ve never done before and never thought you could, like teach children or be an important presence in the life of youth. You may be called to examine your life, what you really need, what you can give to the church—probably more than you think you can spare. You may be asked to pray for or even go to Iran where people are being killed in their homes because they chose to protest the recent election results in Tehran. You may be asked to look at the world differently, telling the story of your faith by making different choices about the way you live, where you live, the kind of car you drive, the way you treat the environmental backdrop around you, the way you spend your money. You may be the next contestant on Disciples Got Talent.

If Jesus showed up in your life today and simply said, “Follow me,” would you go? Maybe that has already happened, and you don’t know what to do next. Maybe you know what you’re being called to do, and you don’t want to do it. Maybe you don’t know how to start. Maybe you are afraid. Whatever your situation, this is the time and place for you to take up your staff, leave the baggage behind, and begin to follow where Christ leads. If you need help, stay here for a while and learn how you can grow into God’s vision for your life. But when it is time to get moving, get moving. Sing your hit song. Play that big gig. Say yes to Jesus.

It’s fun to picture the twelve disciples coming across a stage of sorts by the sea, with Jesus sitting at a table and 2 big cue cards on the table in front of him face down: one with a huge X on it, and one with a huge check mark on it. With absolutely no credentials, tour under their belts, or critical acclaim, they got the check mark, the big “Yes.” And so they went, and their lives were changed. And because of them, so were ours.

Jesus calls you and waits with a giant check mark to show you as you enter the stage of Christian faith and service. You’ve got talent, friends, God-given talent that God waits to use in you when you say yes to God. Are you the next star in the story of Jesus?

Are you a Disciple?

Burned by the Word: Isaiah, and how Sometimes it Hurts to be a Christian

Isaiah 6:1-13

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

My daughter, Joy, is on the cusp of being able to get into things that could hurt her. A few weeks ago she figured out how to roll over, and now her favorite thing to do is roll all over our living room floor. She can quickly make it across the room, so there is no leaving her for a flash to run into the kitchen and grab a drink of water. There is no putting her down to answer the phone in another room. There is no leaving her just long enough to go to the rest room on the other side of the wall. She’s mobile; therefore, she’s dangerous. Sure, it is exciting to see her learning all kinds of new ways to explore the world around her, but I can hardly stand to think about the kind of accidents she could get into and really hurt herself. I would love to spare her of any pain at all, if only I could figure out how to avoid the situations her life will surely encounter that will be difficult and painful.

I know as well as you do, however, that this is not possible. Joy will grow and learn and experiment and explore, and she will come home with broken skin, perhaps bones, and from time to time, a broken heart. To keep her from feeling pain would be to keep her from experiencing life as she was created to experience it. It would keep her from living her life at full stretch, the way God intends for her to live.

We feel this for ourselves, too. We do not like to experience pain or suffering. We want life to be easy. We want to live the joys and happinesses of life and avoid the pain and sorrows at just about all costs. Consider our brother Isaiah, whose story we receive today. The king of Judah named Uzziah had reigned for 41 years. During that time Judah had grown in land and prosperity. It had lived peaceably with its neighbor to the north, Israel. They had formerly been a unified nation, but throughout their history as 2 separate nations, Uzziah’s reign represented a time of peace between the 2 kingdoms. But on the horizon was the rise of Assyria who would, in just a few years time, who would cause the fall of Samaria in Israel and Jerusalem in Judah and the destruction of the temple. The people of God had come to enjoy a kind of domesticated Hebrew life, even a kind of domesticated God who seemed to be always on their side and supporting their prosperity and growing dominance over others.

Then, God called Isaiah, and everything changed.

Knowing he was from a people who had displeased God, Isaiah immediately freaked out when God called and began pleading with God not to put him on the spot. To say he was a man of unclean lips was to say that he was from a people who were not faithful to God in their practice. They did not refer to God with proper reverence in worship. Their words were likely empty praise, giving thanks to God for life all the while believing that it was their own hands which had brought them prosperity. I even imagine them gathering to hear the Word of the Lord read in worship, to pray the psalms, and then to go away from the temple patting themselves on the back and getting back to the work of expanding the kingdom and bringing wealth to the land. They likely were not interested in what brother Isaiah had to say.

The kind of transformation Isaiah and the people of Judah faced was one that would change their world of power and prosperity to one of crisis and subservience to another nation. The wealth they had built for themselves would disappear before their eyes. They would watch their nation crumble to the power of another, and they would be distraught—wondering what happened and how they would get out of it. Would they ever see economic prosperity again? Would they ever have religious independence again? Isaiah was being called to a very difficult job: to bring hope to a people who would find themselves drowning in a sea of hopelessness. It was a huge job. It was probably meant for someone who was really prepared, had studied for it, was someone that people would listen to.

God called Isaiah.

God called a man who was afraid of the job. God called a man who had no idea how to respond to the presence and voice of God. God called a man who was not only not worthy of the job but also, and probably more importantly, not ready for the job. Isaiah was none of the above, at least in his own opinion. But God fixed that. The seraph was the member of God’s court in charge of healing. So the pain that Isaiah experienced was actually pain that helped him to heal that in his life which held him back from being able to say yes to God. The vision of God in the holy temple tears Isaiah apart; he is made painfully aware of his shortcomings and inadequacies. He calls himself out as being of “unclean lips,” and a seraph places a hot coal to his lips. But this is ultimately a healing action, and God’s call in his life is not just to get his own self and life straightened out but also to do all he can to help straighten out the broken, hurting world in which he lives.

The rest of Isaiah’s story and legacy is his engagement on God’s behalf of what is wrong in the world by imposing a vision of what is right. God’s vision for the world is still alive and could be close at hand if Isaiah can help turn the hearts of the people. It is a hard job; nobody wants to change, especially when things seem to be going so well with or without God. Why would the people of Judah want to listen to Isaiah when they are living in a period of prosperity and cannot see the devastation coming on the horizon? It was hard work for Isaiah; painful work. And it was the call of God upon Isaiah’s life.

Much of what we are called to do as Christians is hard work. And sometimes we have to go through our own kind of hot coals on the lips to be truly ready to be a follower of God in Christ. Isaiah is an example of someone who declared himself unready, unworthy, and the last one on earth God should call. Yet, without his career as a prophet, where would the people of God be today? Without the example he set of speaking truth to power and hope to hopelessness, where would the people of God be now? Because of Isaiah, we have a tradition of hoping for things that seem impossible which prepared us for the story of Jesus: his life, death, and resurrection. It was the story of Isaiah that echoed when Mary Magdalene came to the empty tomb and believed what she saw there.

And it was those hot coals that made it possible. It was the coals—the pain of being called and transformed for a life of service to God that touches even our generation of faith and give us courage to say yes to God’s call in our lives. And God is still calling.

God calls us to stand up for repentance, for change. We need to participate in the prophecy of the Word of God in this time and this place. Where are the places we see injustice? Where are the walls that need to be torn down, the words of hope that need to be spoken, the hubris that needs to be checked so that God’s word of salvation and hope can be heard and believed and lived out in our lives?

Before he could truly live into God’s purpose for his life, Isaiah had to experience pain and accept the humility with which one must respond to God’s call. How has your life as a Christian been painful? Can you relate to the story of Isaiah—a story of calling of a very ordinary person with some skeletons lurking in the proverbial closet?

Is God calling you to something hard, something big, something painful, for which you don’t think you are ready? God’s vision of restoration is still at work in the world, and to make a God-sized vision come true, God still needs Isaiahs, people of unclean lips, of prideful nations, who will say yes to the painful and glorious work of the transformation of the world. You see, these people, these ancestors, these brothers and sisters of ours are not far away, fanciful characters of the past. They are you and me. I am Isaiah, and Isaiah is you. We are called to speak truth when no one wants to hear it; to be faithful to the word of God and the hope that the world can and will change, and that we are an important part of making that change a reality. We are today’s prophetic voices; we are the ones sharing the hope of Christ with the world—the world that is hurting because of occupation, economic hardship and injustice, hatred and violence, and isolation from God.

But friends, we believe that things can change or we wouldn’t be here today. We believe Isaiahs are still out there spreading the message of God, and some of us are those Isaiahs. Our dear brother of long ago simply said yes. He didn’t know what God would ultimately ask of him, but he said yes anyway. In retrospect, it was probably the easiest decision of his life, the one he worked the hardest to fulfill. It wasn’t easy. It caused him pain, and probably the loss of some friends, family, and in the short run, respect. But because of Isaiah, the unworthy and unready, the story of Christ has been heard, accepted, lived, and passed on for generations. The faithful members of the Civil Rights Movement in this country, Archbishop Desmund Tutu and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, and the many, many faithful fighting hard against discrimination directed legally, theologically, and personally against members of the LGBTQ community are the Isaiahs that God continues to call.

And we gather here today waiting for the next word from God.

Whom will the Lord send? Who are the Isaiahs here today? Who will go into the world with the good news of hope and God’s grace? Will it be you?

Eating the Bible

Ezekiel 3:1-11

He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.

He said to me: Mortal, go to the house of Israel and speak my very words to them. For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel— not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me; because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. He said to me: Mortal, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart and hear with your ears; then go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them. Say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God’; whether they hear or refuse to hear.

Several years ago I saw a new product that REALLY got my attention. I try not to fall victim to marketing campaigns, but I couldn’t believe this one. It was a little package of mints, like LifeSavers, except these were square. There was a picture of one of them on the outside of the package, and I noticed it had a cross on it. The wrapper had the phrase, “Pass the Word!” written on it. I cracked up there in the store! I had never seen, heard, or even thought of anything like this. You may have heard of them; they are called “Testamints”. When you buy a bag of the things, each one is wrapped in scripture. They are an easy way to get the Word of God out there in the hands of all kinds of people—maybe even people who don’t know anything about the Word of God. Now, it is not my intention to be flippant about the Testamints, although I suspect there may be other and better ways to teach people the Word of God than by printing it on the wrappers of mints.

When I was in the third grade, we moved to a new city and a new church. The first Sunday we were there, my mom and dad helped me find my Sunday school class which was Mrs. Lang’s class. It was for 3rd – 5th graders, and there were about 8 of us in that class. I loved Mrs. Lang; all I really remember about her was that she was always there, she was sweet, and I loved her a whole lot. She was the first teacher I ever had who made me memorize scripture, and I’m pretty sure she was also the last. Mine to remember was the parable of the lost sheep. I’m not sure we were actually supposed to memorize it word by word as much as we were supposed to learn it. I was so embarrassed when I couldn’t remember the whole thing! The only other thing we’d had to learn in Sunday school was the Lord’s Prayer, and since we said that in church every week, that wasn’t so hard to remember. But the parable of the lost sheep has a few more details that you might remember—at least for a 3rd grader it did. Luckily, Mrs. Lang gave me another chance to learn the story. I suspect she would have given me a hundred more chances to get it right.

The very first lesson of Disciple I Bible study involves an exercise in which the participants in the class talk about the first Bible they ever received. Where did it come from? What do you remember about it? The first one I ever remember receiving was quite large. I think it must have been printed on paper that was at least 11 x 17 inches, because it was almost hard to carry it. It was the one that kids at my church received when we finished third grade. It had pictures and was written in English that was supposed to be a little easier to understand. And it had a blue cover. I still have it at home, and one day I’ll show it to Joy when she is big enough not to eat the pages or rip them out.

Do you remember your first encounter with the Word of God?

Part of my intent in designing summer messages that introduced us to some of the characters in the Bible was to help us understand and think about the fact that the people described in the Bible were real, flesh and blood children of God just like you and I are, and they were called for a purpose just like you and I are, and their “Yes,” to God took their lives on some pretty amazing and interesting paths, just like yours and mine do—although we are hesitant to think of ourselves on equal playing ground with the characters of the Old and New Testaments, aren’t we? We tend to place the people in the bible on a kind of supernatural pedestal and assume that they were a little larger than life and somehow a little closer to God than we are today. The truth is that they are us, and we are them. Last week we talked about our brother Isaiah and his call to speak the word of God to people who had grown convinced that they really didn’t need God anymore. He brought words not only of conviction but also of hope to the people of God. And today Ezekiel: our brother, the prophet, who saw great visions of God, gave life to dry bones, and brought the Word of God to God’s people when they were in exile in Babylon.

So, as for relating your life to Ezekiel’s, I wouldn’t start with the first chapter. There you will find his vision of human beings with 4 faces, a great chariot, something described as a wheel within a wheel, and an incredible throne. He was, after all, a priest, and you know that we come up with some crazy things from time to time. We talk about things that no one else talks about; we tend to be a little nerdy about the Bible and God stuff; we even use words like justification and sanctification, and we know that people stare at us, befuddled. But one of the things that draws me into the story of Ezekiel is his willingness to embrace the vision of God, outrageous as it is.

We enter his story as the inaugural vision seems to be winding down: God has approached Ezekiel and has begun to give him his assignment. ‘Speak to your people, who are stubborn and won’t hear you, and tell them that I am God and that bad times are coming.’ Ezekiel got the fun job.

In the verses immediately preceding chapter 3, we find out that the scroll Ezekiel is invited to eat has words written all over it—on the front and the back—and the words were words of lamentation, mourning, and woe. These were the words that Ezekiel had to swallow, take into his being, and then share with others—whether they wanted to hear it or not. And the scroll was sweet in his mouth; the Word of God was very pleasing to his mouth.

And then came the instruction: go to your own people, people you know, people who know you, and speak the words of lamentation, mourning, and woe to them. You won’t even have to learn a new language or new people. God has such high hopes for Ezekiel: “Surely, if I send you to them they will listen to you,” God says in verse 6. Ezekiel was a priest who was asked to eat scripture and then sent to the people of his community to tell them that they were in trouble with God. Sounds just like us, doesn’t it?

We are not priests. Well, except for Laura and me, the rest of us here are members of the congregation. We do not actually eat the Bible. Who needs to eat paper or even vegetables when we have a range of tasty fiber bars to choose from these days? And I doubt that any of you will leave here today and go walking down your street telling all your neighbors how disappointing their lives are to God. Ezekiel, our brother?

But it’s the way he did it! Ezekiel likely had spent his childhood in the Temple, gathering with other children to hear the Word of God from the Torah and its interpretation from the priests. He had been trained in the story and proper worship of God. He had heard the stories of other people and their experiences with God while contemplating his own. And then this happened!

What God wanted for Ezekiel was that he would take God’s Word not just into his mind but into his whole heart, soul, and mind. God wanted the Word to be Ezekiel’s essential being. It is one thing to know what holy scripture says; it is quite another to live it out in your life. For generations, the people of God had relied upon simply knowing what the Torah said: about God and God’s power, God’s love for God’s people, and God’s mercy and forgiveness for people who rebel. But they had lost the ability to live in that knowledge. They relied upon their own power and the power of Babylon to provide a comfortable, entertaining life. And God knew that words would not necessarily win them over. It would take much more: it would take faithfulness, vision, and keeping the Word of God close in your heart, your soul, your mind—your very being.

Then the Word of God would just eminate from you. It would pour out of your life, out of everything you did. It would turn you all into priests, the kind who live sermons with your lives and only use words when it is absolutely necessary. You wouldn’t have to tell your neighbors how sinful they are; you would tell the church how much it needs to change by opening yourself to others in ways the church doesn’t yet.. You wouldn’t have to remind anyone to love others; you would enjoy watching them respond to your good example. You would not have to convince people that forgiveness is the way to go—holding grudges would be a thing of the past. Have you ever considered the influence of your behavior on the people around you?

Our brother Ezekiel reminds us of the fact that having a relationship with God requires more of us than reading the words on the page. Having God in your life is having God IN your life. It is telling the world about the selfless love of Christ with your life and how you give of yourself expecting nothing in return but love to be given freely. It is taking God’s Word into your very being and letting it live and grow there for others to see—a witness far more meaningful than words on a mint wrapper.

What are the things you know by heart? Is the story of God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ one of those things? Does your life speak the sweet Word of God? If you need a little help, I bet we have a scroll or 2 around here that you could snack on for a while. Thank you, brother Ezekiel, for your strange visions, for saying, “Yes,” to God, and for reminding us that its not about how many verses we memorize but how much our lives reflect God to all to whom you send us.

It truly is the Word of God—honey, lamentation, and all—for the people of God.

Thanks be to God!